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1965
Pat Epps was only three years old on that dreadful day at Athens Airport (KAHN), now named after the family patriarch. But luckily for us all, Pat’s mom encouraged him and his siblings to continue with their aviation aspirations. All five brothers and two sisters became pilots. And by the time he was 15, Pat was winning awards and competitions like the Southeastern Free Flight Model Sailplane Contest. He’ll tell you with a grin, though, that he was a late bloomer, not soloing until he was 18.
During high school, continuing to learn as much as he could about the inner mechanics of engines and systems, Pat took a job as an automotive maintenance technician. At the same time, he was taking flying lessons from his older brother, Doug, ultimately soloing in a Piper J-3 Cub before attending Georgia Tech. Prior to completing a mechanical engineering degree in 1956, he worked summers in Yakima, Washington, in a machine shop. Through Georgia Tech’s Air Force ROTC program, Pat also earned a commission as a second lieutenant, and after graduation, he went to work at Boeing as a flight test engineer on the 707 prototype pro- gram. In 1957, Pat signed on for active duty in the Air Force, earning his wings in 1958 in the Beechcraft T-34. He then transitioned to the C-97 Stratofreighter, a military variant of Boeing’s 377 Stratocruiser airliner. Pat left active duty in 1963, taking a job with his brother George in Huntsville, Alabama, and was honorably discharged from the Air Force at the rank of captain in 1965.
While in Huntsville, George and Pat answered an ad in Flying Magazine recruiting Mooney dealers. This started Pat’s long success at selling airplanes as the brothers became Mooney Aircraft Company’s newest dealers for Georgia and Alabama. Concurrently, Epps Air Service started operations with 19 employees, a hangar and some offices at Atlanta’s Dekalb-Peachtree Airport. Shortly after, Epps expanded its maintenance capabilities and purchased Hangar 2 in November of that year. During all this, Pat was flying back and forth between Atlanta and Huntsville to support the business in both cities. The next year, the brothers purchased a competitor, Chamblee Aviation, and started their own flight school at PDK. To close out the decade, Epps built 22 new T-hangars on newly leased land at the airport in 1969.
The 1970s at PDK were eventful as well. Pat was laser- focused on serving his customers and facilitating growth
1985
Pat Epps
in Atlanta. The beginning of the decade saw Epps start its own Part 135 charter service, and in 1979, the company opened a new customer terminal building, along with Hangar 4 and 10 additional T-hangars. Also that year, Epps hosted the annual NBAA convention at its site. Once a Georgia-centric aviation company, Epps was beginning to be known nationally.
The 1980s were all about expansion at PDK. Hangars 5, 7, and 8 were built along with a new road connecting every- thing. It was also a decade in which Epps realized a passion for serving the needs of an underserved aviation commu- nity by offering flight training for the physically disabled.
Pat Epps was prolific in personal and professional projects. We rewind to 1981 for a moment. Pat is interested in uncover- ing a WWII Lockheed P-38 Lightning aircraft buried 265 feet beneath the ice of Greenland. He joins and eventually leads the Greenland Expedition Society (GES) in an 11-year, 7-expedition mission to uncover an aircraft from the Lost Squadron, a group consisting of two B-17s and six P-38s. The squadron had been flying for hours in some of the North Atlantic’s worst weather and all were low on fuel. The eight aircraft were forced to go down on an icecap in Greenland on July 15, 1942. Having known of the Lost Squadron and being spurred on by a friend looking to own a P-38, Pat Epps helped form and lead the GES with the eventual recovery of P-38 “Glacier Girl” during the summer of 1992.
January 2022 / TWIN & TURBINE • 19